Race Driver Bodine Breaks Collarbone

Published 8:00 pm, Friday, June 13, 2003

Brett Bodine broke his collarbone during a crash in practice and will miss Sunday's NASCAR race.

He will be replaced by brother Geoffrey Bodine for the Sirius Satellite 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Bodine was briefly unconscious, said brother Todd Bodine, who was on the track and saw the accident.

Brett Bodine broke his right clavicle and was to be released from the hospital Saturday.

He was able to get out of his battered car on his own before being carried by safety workers to an ambulance and taken to the infield care center. He then went to the hospital.

Todd Bodine parked his car at the side of the track and ran to help his brother.

"He wasn't slowing down," he said. "He was still running 150 miles an hour."

Todd Bodine thinks his brother blew a right-front tire.

"My only regret is that I didn't stop him from hitting the wall," he said. "I should have sacrificed my car because I could tell he was knocked out. That's why I was running alongside of him."

Brett Bodine is the only owner-driver in the Winston Cup series. Earlier this week, Hooters said it would not sponsor Brett Bodine Racing after Sunday's race. Before the crash, Bodine said Hooters was supposed to sponsor his team at Daytona.

"I have some things on the table," he said, referring to another possible sponsor.

Bodine is 44th in points this season and has qualified for just six of 14 races. Last year, he was 36th in points. He has not finished better than 24th since starting his own team in 1996.

Bodine crashed the No. 11 Ford when it appeared to run over a piece of debris left on the track by another car, cutting his right front tire. The car swerved into the outside wall, then continued along the track and slammed hard head-on into a tire wall at the bottom of the banked track at the exit of Turn 2.

"Both of them were pretty vicious hits," Todd Bodine said. "The second one was as bad as the first one."

He said Brett was awake when he got to the car.

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"It took him a minute or so," Todd said. "I asked him a couple of times where he was at and he mumbled. On the third time, he said 'Michigan' and he knew who I was. I knew he was all right when he leaned up on the stretcher and hugged me and said he loved me."